Leppänen, Sirpa, Tarja Nikula & Leila Kääntä (eds.) (2008) Kolmas ...

Leppänen, Sirpa, Tarja Nikula & Leila Kääntä (eds.) (2008) Kolmas

Leppänen, Sirpa, TarjaNikula & LeilaKääntä (eds.) (2008) Kolmas kotimainen: Lähikuvia englannin käytöstä Suomessa. Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura. Pp. 445. [Tietolipas 224]. Reviewed by Ulla Paatola Kolmas kotimainen: Lähikuvia englannin käytöstä Suomessa (“The Third Domestic Language: Close-ups on the Use of English in Finland”) offers case studies on the highly topical issue of how English is used in Finnish society in the early 21st century. As the book reminds us, English is no longer just a foreign language Finns use with non-Finns, but has spread into Finnish media, the education system, Finnish working life, and thus into everyday life, so that nowadays Finns sometimes end up using English even among themselves (e.g., pp. 10–12, 15–16, 23, 25). By taking a neutral, or even positive and permissive stance on this phenomenon, this book describes English as an additional “resource” that Finns have in their speech repertoire in addition to their mother tongue. Thus, I take it that the “third domestic” in the book title refers to English being close to a third national language in Finland alongside Finnish and Swedish – even though the title is not explained in so many words. In Finland, the majority of Finns either speak Finnish or Swedish as their mother tongue, and all Finnish and Swedish speakers are obliged to study the other language at school. Theoretically speaking, then, everyone should know both languages and the language which is not a person’s mother tongue – in most cases Swedish – is traditionally referred to as her/his “second domestic language.” The title of the book thus seems to be a play on the traditional perception that Finland has two domestic languages and indicates that the authors of the book do indeed feel that English has a strong hold in Finnish society. The book has been written by professors and post-graduate students, eleven altogether, from the Department of Languages at the University of Jyväskylä (except for one author). The volume is edited by three of its authors, SirpaLeppänen, TarjaNikula and LeilaKääntä. It contains a foreword by the editors, an introductory article and a conclusion by Leppänen and Nikula, and twelve articles altogether. As similar phenomena and conclusions come up over and over again, it would have been clearer from a reader’s viewpoint if there had been more dialogue between the articles and the authors had referred to each other more. Another thing that SKY Journal of Linguistics 22 (2009), 301–307